The Lab

by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 25, 2003 6:26 PM EST
So I've been mentioning "The Lab" in the past couple of updates and have received a decent number of requests for pictures of it. First, let me give you a little background on what the lab is, where it is going and where it has been.

I started AT out of the smallest bedroom possible, after the first couple of years it became clear that the bedroom wasn't going to cut it anymore. I was around 17 or 18 at the time so still living with the parents, we ended up moving into a larger place and they gave me the bonus room to convert into what became known as "The Lab." All this time we've been working on building a new building - just for AnandTech - in Morrisville, NC, but that's taking its sweet time thanks to the usual setbacks associated with construction and unpredictable weather. At the end of July I finally moved out into my first house (which was an experience itself) and now the old Lab is where all the hardware remains. It's mostly an attempt to somewhat separate my personal life from my AT life; so the lab will remain at the old house until the building in Morrisville is ready, who knows how long that will take...

The Lab is definitely a mess, imagine tons of Radeon 9x00s, GeForce FXs and motherboards littered everywhere. There's a drawer full of CPUs and then there's another one full of CPUs we don't use as much anymore. Then there's the massive memory drawer, mostly for server testing. Let's not get into the attic, which has the first ~200 motherboards I ever personally reviewed as well as other random hardware. To top it all off however, my first computer is in The Lab - an Apple IIe; I used to play digdug all the time on that thing.

In other news, it seems that I should've checked my alarm clock to make sure that I had actually set it properly after Isabel hit - I managed to miss that 8AM class...oops...shoulda stayed up benchmarking longer :) Derek and I managed to get some good work done yesterday and some more today during my mid-day break. Later tonight we'll probably hit The Lab again and hopefully we'll be able to finish up the new test suite by Sunday. Right now I'm starving and I've got a ton on my plate, so until next time...

Take care

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  • Geekboy - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link

    Say, Anand, if you really need to get rid of some of the CPU's and lessen the pile of Radeon9x00's and GF FX's, you could send some my way. tho i dont have alot of $$$ to pay for them...
  • GTaudiophile - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link

    I need a job. Does that lab need a janitor?

    I'm sure that will put my GA Tech degree to use!

    -resident fanATIc
  • Derek Wilson - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link

    Man ... A couple weeks ago (right before IDF) I was over at the Lab while Anand was hard at work with some late night benchmarking of the athlon64 (just after finishing a take home test for our economic analysis class). My feet looked like a battle zone after walking around up there :-) Mostly cause I'm a bit clumsy, but there's plenty of mess in the floor to help. ;-)
  • MangoTBG - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link

    Damn Anand. Seriously, let me know if you want me to move up to NC with ya! I'm sure you could use a roomie! ;) I get the ladies, if that's what you're missing ;).


    Joking aside, we expect pics no later than October 1st!!! :)


    Congrats on the house and goodluck with the new Lab!
  • NTB - Thursday, September 25, 2003 - link

    A new building solely for AT? This place is bigger than I thought. Then again, sometimes I also forget that this is all run by a college student...Congrats to Anand & and the entire AT staff.
  • Anonymous - Thursday, September 25, 2003 - link

    My first computer was an Apple IIc. I used to play Rescue Raiders on that thing constantly. I recently went back to Apple after ditching them after the IIc and slapped a nice little Apple IIg emulator on OS X so I can now still play Rescue Raiders. Man, that game still holds up to the test of time. Does the IIe in the lab still work? Are you looking at adding to the Apple inventory?:-) The dual G5 PowerMac finally bring Apple up to par at least with the x86 competition. One thing I think the Apple hardware benchmarking sites lack is thorough benchmarking based on consistent guidelines. It'd be great to see an AnandTech style benchmark of Apple hardware done by an AT Mac-only guy.
  • NTB - Thursday, September 25, 2003 - link

    A new building solely for AT? This place is bigger than I thought. Then again, sometimes I also forget that this is all run by a college student...Congrats to Anand & and the entire AT staff.
  • SDA - Thursday, September 25, 2003 - link

    I wish my messes were like that.
  • GTaudiophile - Thursday, September 25, 2003 - link

    Anand needs his own personal shop on eBay with all that spare hardware!

    -resident fanATIc
  • ViRGE - Thursday, September 25, 2003 - link

    Wow, your first house? Congratulations man. I hope you aren't the home improvement type however, otherwise Saturdays for the next 10 years are forever lost.;)

    PS If you really want to get rid of that old hardware to free up some space, giveaways are always great buisness, *hint* *hint*

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